More radical treatments such as lobotomies, originating in 1936, involved severing
connections within the brain through invasive surgery and were designed to modify
disturbed behaviour and mood. This treatment became increasingly controversial
and its crudeness and inexact nature caused the practise be phased out towards the
end of the 1950s, at a time when new medications started to arrive. In the relatively
short period time in which they were used, at least 15,000 of these operations were
performed in Britain. (Bewley, 2008)